1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cleaning systems used in industrial settings for, typically, the cleaning of parts after manufacturing processes have been completed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Cleaning of parts is an essential step in the manufacturing process. For example, during the manufacture and machining of parts, surfaces of the parts may retain coatings of industrial chemicals, and/or the parts may have geometries which harbor chips or other solid debris. In order to clean parts of coatings and debris, cleaning systems are utilized. In a typical cleaning machine, a wash, rinse and dry cycle are provided. During the wash cycle a pressurized wash solution is sprayed forcefully onto the parts, and the parts are also passed periodically through a bath of the wash solution. During the rinse cycle, the parts are sprayed with a rinse solution and passed through a bath of the rinse solution. During the drying cycle, the parts are subjected to blowing of air. Some prior art cleaning systems are known to incorporate filtration for the wash and rinse cycles and to have programmable controller (referred to most of ten, and referred to herein, as "CPU", and sometimes as "PLC") control of the cycling. These cleaning systems are also known to provide parts basket rotation.
Unfortunately, multi-basket prior art cleaning systems suffer from a fixed location spray head assembly which only effectively cleans the parts closest thereto. Therefore, any particular part is cleaned best only periodically when the basket rotates past the spray head assembly, and, unfortunately, the spray directly strikes the same side of the basket each time as this side passes the spray head assembly with each revolution. These cleaning systems further suffer from single cyclic rotary movement of the baskets which tends to limit the efficacy of passage through the bath, be that the wash solution or the rinse solution. Lastly, these cleaning systems suffer from cross-feed of the wash and rinse solutions due to remnants thereof remaining in the common plumbing lines when cycling is undertaken. Accordingly, the wash tank will become diluted in time, and, in time, the rinse tank will become contaminated by the wash solution, resulting in frequent solutions changing. Cross-solution contamination necessitates changing before the solution would have otherwise failed in use without cross-contamination occurring.
Accordingly, what remains needed in the art is a cleaning system which provides simultaneous epicycloidic (multi-cyclic) movement of the parts to be cleaned, rotating spray which synchronously follows the rotation of the parts, and a purge system for vacating solution the from the common plumbing of a current cycle before commencement of the next cycle.